White Nights and Other Stories

Extract, FIRST NIGHT It was a wonderful night, such a night as is only possible when we are young, dear reader. The sky was so starry, so bright that, looking at it, one could not help asking oneself whether ill-humoured and capricious people could live under such a sky. That is a youthful question too, dear reader, very youthful, but may the Lord put it more frequently into your heart ... Speaking of capricious and ill-humoured people, I cannot help recalling my moral condition all that day. From early morning I had been oppressed by a strange despondency. It suddenly seemed to me that I was lonely, that every one was forsaking me and going away from me. Of course, any one is entitled to ask who "every one" was. For though I had been living almost eight years in Petersburg I had hardly an acquaintance. But what did I want with acquaintances? I was acquainted with all Petersburg as it was; that was why I felt as though they were all deserting me when all Petersburg packed up and went to its summer villa. I felt afraid of being left alone, and for three whole days I wandered about the town in profound dejection, not knowing what to do with myself. Whether I walked in the Nevsky, went to the Gardens or sauntered on the embankment, there was not one face of those I had been accustomed to meet at the same time and place all the year. They, of course, do not know me, but I know them. I know them intimately, I have almost made a study of their faces, and am delighted when they are gay, and downcast when they are under a cloud. I have almost struck up a friendship with one old man whom I meet every blessed day, at the same hour in Fontanka. Such a grave, pensive countenance; he is always whispering to himself and brandishing his left arm, while in his right hand he holds a long gnarled stick with a gold knob. He even notices me and takes a warm interest in me. If I happen not to be at a certain time in the same spot in Fontanka, I am certain he feels disappointed. That is how it is that we almost bow to each other, especially when we are both in good humour. The other day, when we had not seen each other for two days and met on the third, we were actually touching our hats, but, realizing in time, dropped our hands and passed each other with a look of interest.

Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky (as Fedor Fedor or Theodore in French) Listen is a Russian writer, born in Moscow on Nov. 11 (October 30) in 1821 and died in St. Petersburg on February 9 (Jan. 28) 1881. It is generally considered one of the greatest Russian novelists, and has influenced many writers and philosophers. After a difficult childhood, he attended a school for officers and binds with the Russian progressive movements. Arrested for this reason in 1849 he was deported to a Siberian prison for four years. Returned lieutenant, he resigned from the army in 1860 and is really committed to writing. Epileptic player in debt and a dark character, Dostoevsky first leads a life of wandering in Europe, during which he became a staunch liberal for his country and especially a staunch patriot, before being recognized his return to Russia in 1871 after the publication of Crime and Punishment (1866) and the Idiot (1868) which opened the period of maturity where the author wrote his most accomplished works: the Eternal Husband (1870) the Demons (1871) and the Brothers Karamazov (1880). Dostoevsky’s novels are sometimes called ＂metaphysical＂, as the anguished question of free will and the existence of God is at the heart of his thinking, as the figure of Christ. However, his works are not ＂thesis novels＂, but novels where dialectically opposed views with different characters who build themselves, through their actions and their social interactions.